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Charity and Mercy

It’s been unseasonably cold in southeastern Wisconsin this week, and in Whitewater that presents a challenge for the disproportionately large number of impoverished residents (some of whom occasionally lack utilities, even at the most unfavorable times). The three large public institutions in the city – municipal government, school district, and public university – have collectively dozens…

One test of an institution’s vitality is how eager people are to become members, and how interested a community is to learn who’s become a member. Strong institutions or organizations attract attention. When the institution is a city or county government, one looks to see who’s eager to run for office, and how many people…

For many years, I would begin the year with predictions for the twelve months ahead. Events since 2016 have made predictions harder, but one can still discern some short-term developments for the city. These prospects, of course, form an online of topics to ponder, and about which to write (often requiring that one return to the…

This federal administration, despite a leader who receives support from some conservative religious groups, acts against generations of legal, philosophical, and religious principles when it uses force against unarmed asylum seekers. Father James Martin writes Stop the assault on asylum seekers: Yesterday the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency fired tear gas at migrants trying to seek…

Stratis is a fisherman in Greece, who has personally helped rescue thousands of refugees. He says it all comes down to one simple fact: we’re all human. pic.twitter.com/lmYqpWgWyI — AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) May 21, 2018

A hard condition of our communities is found among Dreamers vulnerable to unjust deportation; the hard work on their behalf is found among those who have actively protested in defense of those Dreamers. For the rest of us, Voces de la Frontera offers an opportunity to contribute to pay the fines of twenty-three who protested…

There are two books I’m eager to review here at FW: Katherine Cramer’s Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (2016) and Amy Goldstein’s Janesville: An American Story (4.18.17). Like many others, I’ve been awaiting Goldstein’s book for some time, knowing that significant works take time. For both books,…

I posted yesterday that Gentrification Requires the Right Social Conditions, contending in part that a small city like Whitewater remains divided (and by consequence limits its own attractiveness to newcomers) because it remains divided by town and gown (and divided within the town, itself, too). Whitewater’s problem is not that different factions do not have a…

I’ve written that Whitewater faces a choice between decisive action now (to lessen government’s role) or years of stagnation and relative decline before eventual gentrification (at which point longtime residents will have almost no say in redevelopment). See, How Big Averts Bad. As I doubt Whitewater’s local political class has the will for near-term changes, the best…

There’s a wide difference between believing that we’ve difficult national or local times ahead and losing confidence. I’m as confident today as ever that Whitewater has a bright long-term future. There’s simply hard work ahead between now and then, and more hard work now than we might have hoped (national trends being what they are). What to do?…

Please see a news release about charitable work in our small city — best wishes to all who are supporting the campaign – Whitewater Community Foundation is concluding its first ever Annual Campaign Thank you to everyone who donated! We reached our modest goal of $50,000, and the donations are still rolling in! Thank you to…

I’ve long argued that the application of continent-wide standards to local challenges offers better solutions for our small town than a hyper-localism that ignores best practices from across our country. See, What Standards for Whitewater? We will achieve little, and leave less for the next generation, if we do less – if we reach lower –…

GOOD BOOKS: “We Need To Talk About Alice” from Plenty on Vimeo. (See all the process, character design, style frames, at plenty.tv/work/good-books-we-need-to-talk-about-alice ) “We need to talk about Alice” was commissioned by New Zealand based agency String Theory and created to be part of Good Books’ “Great Writers Series,” a collection of short films made…